The Kurdish Question and "Sub and Supra Identity" Discussions
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The colonialist regime has recently brought again into the agenda the discussions of "Kurds are a sub-identity". Yet the discussions on identity in these frameworks are not a new discussion. In the face of Kurdish national liberation struggle, the subject has been discussed many times under the concepts of the "Kurdish reality", "cultural richness", "Kurdish identity" and "Bask model". However even these discussions have had been used as a tool of propaganda for "change" or "progress", at first in pursuance of acceptance and later letting to be forgotten. In other words, the Kurdish people were putted into such numerous expectations causing disappointment. There is no doubt, the discussions on sub and supra identity show that the State has reached from the wording of "Mountain Turks" to the wording of "the Kurds do exist", and it is a product of the Kurdish national liberation struggle. But through this, in essence, they want the Kurdish nation to forget its right of self-determination and its right to establish an independent state.

The existence of Kurdish nation is an undeniable reality. It cannot be reduced to the level of sub-identity. It is because the Kurds, with their country, language, culture and thousands years of history, are a nation that has been divided into four parts by Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. In spite of the colonialist approaches that have been concretised in the form of turning them into a Turk, Arab, Persian or a people without identity, the Kurds have succeeded to continue to exist. The fight for a free and independent Kurdistan is conducted in every part of it even with unequal and tough conditions.

The last discussions on sub and supra identity is, in fact, a continuity of the colonialist regime's annihilation and denial policy in rarefied shape. On one hand it aimed at the hiding of dark organisations and their dirty actions such as State's counter-guerrilla, Special War Branch, which were caught red-handed in Semdinli (a town in Northern Kurdistan), and the extinguishment of the Kurdish uprisings that begun to grow and deepen on the other.

Discussions on identity have intensified after the statements in Semdinli of Prime Minister, T. Erdogan who went there in a great secrecy and hurry. There he announced that the Kurds "are a sub-identity depending on the supra-identity of the Republic of Turkey citizenship". But, due to the pressure from the generals and status quoits' state clique, he was not late to make new statements and show inconsistencies that disclaim his former statements. T. Erdogan did not only said that the people of Semdinli cannot be listened as witnesses in the court where the members of counter-guerrilla were tried, but he also repeated that he is in favour of denying, chauvinist and racist official and traditional policy in the form of "One flag, one nation and one state".

In his New Year message, the President of Turkey, Ahmet Necdet Sezer has underlined the status quos of the Turkish bourgeoisie and once more repeated the denial of Kurds. "The Kurds cannot be a sub-identity" he said. Thus the regime has again repeated that it cannot tolerate even to the discussions on "sub and supra identity" that were thrown into the middle in order to hunt down the Kurdish people. With his following words: "According to our constitution, the Republic of Turkey has an indivisible unity with its land and nation and it has got one single state-structure. There is only one founder state, one country and one nation. We can't give up these facts and the ideal of one language and one flag. Accepting everybody -who is a Turkish Republic citizen- as 'Turk' does not necessarily mean to alienate ethnic identities of the elements that constitute the Turkish Nation", Sezer has both replied Tayyip Erdogan and his supporters, who tried to hunt down the Kurdish people with the wordings of "sub-identity" and also shown the borders of colonialism to the ones expecting a democratic solution from these discussions.

We can say that there are two points attracting attention: The first one is the declarations of divided, contradictory and controversial will-powers on the state level, including the prime minister who made statement on the Kurdish identity. And the second one is the participation of the national reformist PKK leaders by "optimistic statements" on these discussions which every time put Kurdish people into engagement or new expectations.

In 1978 and latter years, the national revolutionary PKK (Workers Party of Kurdistan) was writing followings in its brochure entitled "The Road of Kurdistan Revolution": "In the foreground, Kurdistan revolution targets the Turkish colonialism. It is the Turkish colonialism that seizes the political independence, continues to function as to complete annihilation on the Kurdish language, history and culture, destroys and plunders the forces of production. This colonialism is supported by imperialists in outside and the feudal-compradors inside. These there powers, which are connected to each other with close economic ties, form the targets of revolutionaries of Kurdistan85Tasks of the Kurdistan Revolution predict the creation of an independent and democratic Kurdistan."

Through "Imrali Defence", the leader of PKK, A. Ocalan, who was handed over to the Turkish bourgeoisie state on 15 February 1999 as a result of an international imperialist conspiracy, has pointed out the need for PKK's strategic change and transformation. The PKK, which hereby entered into reformist path with its 7th Extraordinary Congress organised in the beginning of 2000, went for strategic changes in political, organisational and programmatic areas under the name of developing a "peace project". And in their 7th Extraordinary Congress decisions, they declared: "Chairman Apo,85 has putted in front of everyone the key solution of impasse problems by making Imrali Defence. This approach aims to find solution to the Kurdish question without touching the borders and within the democratic republic. This solution, which corresponds with the historical Turkish-Kurdish relations and the reality of Turkey, at the same time, carries a characteristic of Kurds to live freely with their identities and to develop their language and culture".

"Our 7th Extraordinary Congress has approved the strategic changes in its programme in order to deepen the peace process started by Chairman Apo through his Imrali Defence and decided to put in practice an intense peace project for the solution of Kurdish question on the basis of Turkey's democratisation.(ibid) As it can be seen, the PKK has also begun to search for a solution of Kurdish question "within the democratic republic" since 1999.

Such that A. Ocalan has repeated his same thoughts during a meeting with his solicitors on 30 November 2005, and he said that he is affirmative with the ideas of the Turkish Prime Minister: "85I am in favour of a solution in the frames of a unitary state-structure. If they want solution, why our way is not cleared? I was the person who used before the concepts that are being used by the Prime Minister now. These concepts belong to me85My style of solution is the solution of 21st Century. I am noting down this to history. I defend the Democratic Republic thesis. Here we are not discussing the constitution, assembly and army of the Republic of Turkey. We accept the Republic of Turkey Citizenship as the constitutional supra-identity.

In the same meeting, A. Ocalan said "My suggestion to our people is to insist on democratic solution. All our people must be in mobilisation for their entire cultural rights, at first the right of education in Kurdish language" and predict a mobilisation for the educational-cultural rights in order to achieve democratic solution.

However, in "The Road of Kurdistan Revolution" brochure, a solution in such forms was evaluated in following words: "...The ways of solution brought forward by both the 'revolutionaries' from oppressor nation and the 'revolutionaries' of the oppressed nation -that are different from the first ones only in nuances but play the same music- on the subject of national question, in the form of 'regional autonomy', 'federal union', 'autonomy of language and culture' are reactionary. And it is contrary with the thesis of 'independent state', the only true way of consideration of the nations' right of self-determination in our day."

In his Imrali Defence, A. Ocalan puts forward the invalidity of the principle of nations' right of self-determination and claims it is a dead-end: "The nations' right of self-determination, which came into fashion in 70s' and interpreted only as the formation of a separate state, in fact was a dead-end with that interpretation. In the practice of Kurdistan, it was putting into impasse the problem85However, when I saw in practice that even the understanding of semi-state, federation, autonomy and etc. are backward and sometimes cause dissolution in comparison with the richness of the style of democratic solution; it become very important for me to concentrate on the democratic system." (Imrali Defence P. 17)

These attitudes are doubtlessly putting into difficulty the revolutionary-popular solution of the Kurdish national question, and giving more time to the colonialist regime's impositions on dissolution.

MLCP considers the real settlement of the Kurdish question within the revolutionary solution which would bring "the full equality of nations and languages": The power of the Union of Workers'-Toilers' Soviet Republics.

This solution was tested and seen in the practice of socialist Soviet Union (SU). The voluntary union of equal, free and independent republics had glorified the people in common, made them brothers and sisters, but the privileges made them enemies of each other. In the light of all these, MLCP has determined the first clause of its programme of Anti-Imperialist Democratic Revolution as follows: "Fascist dictatorship of collaborationist-monopolist bourgeoisie and big landlords shall be overthrown through violent revolution and be replaced with a Union of Workers'-Toilers' Soviet Republics. But the right of separation remains." Moreover, in the Clause 12, it has been said: "The policy of assimilation and colonialist fascist terror and the dirty war carried on against Kurdish nation shall be brought to an end, and obstacles in the way of Kurdish nation preventing it from exercising its right to establish its own state and its freedoms to agitate, inseminate propaganda and organise with this purpose, shall be lifted and the right of Unification of the Kurdish people is recognised and will be defended." And the Clause 13 is almost in the characteristic of responding the current sup-supra discussions: "A full equality of rights between Kurds and Turks shall be ensured, restriction on all languages and cultures shall be abolished, a systematic struggle against Turkish nationalism shall be carried out, efforts shall be made to get Kurdish and Turkish peoples as well as Lazs, Gypsies, Abkhazs, Georgians, Circassians, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks and other nationalities live together in the Union of Workers'-Toilers' Soviet Republics on the basis of full equality of rights and completely of their own accord."

This is the communists' declaration of identity and solution plan!
 

 

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The Kurdish Question and "Sub and Supra Identity" Discussions
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The colonialist regime has recently brought again into the agenda the discussions of "Kurds are a sub-identity". Yet the discussions on identity in these frameworks are not a new discussion. In the face of Kurdish national liberation struggle, the subject has been discussed many times under the concepts of the "Kurdish reality", "cultural richness", "Kurdish identity" and "Bask model". However even these discussions have had been used as a tool of propaganda for "change" or "progress", at first in pursuance of acceptance and later letting to be forgotten. In other words, the Kurdish people were putted into such numerous expectations causing disappointment. There is no doubt, the discussions on sub and supra identity show that the State has reached from the wording of "Mountain Turks" to the wording of "the Kurds do exist", and it is a product of the Kurdish national liberation struggle. But through this, in essence, they want the Kurdish nation to forget its right of self-determination and its right to establish an independent state.

The existence of Kurdish nation is an undeniable reality. It cannot be reduced to the level of sub-identity. It is because the Kurds, with their country, language, culture and thousands years of history, are a nation that has been divided into four parts by Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. In spite of the colonialist approaches that have been concretised in the form of turning them into a Turk, Arab, Persian or a people without identity, the Kurds have succeeded to continue to exist. The fight for a free and independent Kurdistan is conducted in every part of it even with unequal and tough conditions.

The last discussions on sub and supra identity is, in fact, a continuity of the colonialist regime's annihilation and denial policy in rarefied shape. On one hand it aimed at the hiding of dark organisations and their dirty actions such as State's counter-guerrilla, Special War Branch, which were caught red-handed in Semdinli (a town in Northern Kurdistan), and the extinguishment of the Kurdish uprisings that begun to grow and deepen on the other.

Discussions on identity have intensified after the statements in Semdinli of Prime Minister, T. Erdogan who went there in a great secrecy and hurry. There he announced that the Kurds "are a sub-identity depending on the supra-identity of the Republic of Turkey citizenship". But, due to the pressure from the generals and status quoits' state clique, he was not late to make new statements and show inconsistencies that disclaim his former statements. T. Erdogan did not only said that the people of Semdinli cannot be listened as witnesses in the court where the members of counter-guerrilla were tried, but he also repeated that he is in favour of denying, chauvinist and racist official and traditional policy in the form of "One flag, one nation and one state".

In his New Year message, the President of Turkey, Ahmet Necdet Sezer has underlined the status quos of the Turkish bourgeoisie and once more repeated the denial of Kurds. "The Kurds cannot be a sub-identity" he said. Thus the regime has again repeated that it cannot tolerate even to the discussions on "sub and supra identity" that were thrown into the middle in order to hunt down the Kurdish people. With his following words: "According to our constitution, the Republic of Turkey has an indivisible unity with its land and nation and it has got one single state-structure. There is only one founder state, one country and one nation. We can't give up these facts and the ideal of one language and one flag. Accepting everybody -who is a Turkish Republic citizen- as 'Turk' does not necessarily mean to alienate ethnic identities of the elements that constitute the Turkish Nation", Sezer has both replied Tayyip Erdogan and his supporters, who tried to hunt down the Kurdish people with the wordings of "sub-identity" and also shown the borders of colonialism to the ones expecting a democratic solution from these discussions.

We can say that there are two points attracting attention: The first one is the declarations of divided, contradictory and controversial will-powers on the state level, including the prime minister who made statement on the Kurdish identity. And the second one is the participation of the national reformist PKK leaders by "optimistic statements" on these discussions which every time put Kurdish people into engagement or new expectations.

In 1978 and latter years, the national revolutionary PKK (Workers Party of Kurdistan) was writing followings in its brochure entitled "The Road of Kurdistan Revolution": "In the foreground, Kurdistan revolution targets the Turkish colonialism. It is the Turkish colonialism that seizes the political independence, continues to function as to complete annihilation on the Kurdish language, history and culture, destroys and plunders the forces of production. This colonialism is supported by imperialists in outside and the feudal-compradors inside. These there powers, which are connected to each other with close economic ties, form the targets of revolutionaries of Kurdistan85Tasks of the Kurdistan Revolution predict the creation of an independent and democratic Kurdistan."

Through "Imrali Defence", the leader of PKK, A. Ocalan, who was handed over to the Turkish bourgeoisie state on 15 February 1999 as a result of an international imperialist conspiracy, has pointed out the need for PKK's strategic change and transformation. The PKK, which hereby entered into reformist path with its 7th Extraordinary Congress organised in the beginning of 2000, went for strategic changes in political, organisational and programmatic areas under the name of developing a "peace project". And in their 7th Extraordinary Congress decisions, they declared: "Chairman Apo,85 has putted in front of everyone the key solution of impasse problems by making Imrali Defence. This approach aims to find solution to the Kurdish question without touching the borders and within the democratic republic. This solution, which corresponds with the historical Turkish-Kurdish relations and the reality of Turkey, at the same time, carries a characteristic of Kurds to live freely with their identities and to develop their language and culture".

"Our 7th Extraordinary Congress has approved the strategic changes in its programme in order to deepen the peace process started by Chairman Apo through his Imrali Defence and decided to put in practice an intense peace project for the solution of Kurdish question on the basis of Turkey's democratisation.(ibid) As it can be seen, the PKK has also begun to search for a solution of Kurdish question "within the democratic republic" since 1999.

Such that A. Ocalan has repeated his same thoughts during a meeting with his solicitors on 30 November 2005, and he said that he is affirmative with the ideas of the Turkish Prime Minister: "85I am in favour of a solution in the frames of a unitary state-structure. If they want solution, why our way is not cleared? I was the person who used before the concepts that are being used by the Prime Minister now. These concepts belong to me85My style of solution is the solution of 21st Century. I am noting down this to history. I defend the Democratic Republic thesis. Here we are not discussing the constitution, assembly and army of the Republic of Turkey. We accept the Republic of Turkey Citizenship as the constitutional supra-identity.

In the same meeting, A. Ocalan said "My suggestion to our people is to insist on democratic solution. All our people must be in mobilisation for their entire cultural rights, at first the right of education in Kurdish language" and predict a mobilisation for the educational-cultural rights in order to achieve democratic solution.

However, in "The Road of Kurdistan Revolution" brochure, a solution in such forms was evaluated in following words: "...The ways of solution brought forward by both the 'revolutionaries' from oppressor nation and the 'revolutionaries' of the oppressed nation -that are different from the first ones only in nuances but play the same music- on the subject of national question, in the form of 'regional autonomy', 'federal union', 'autonomy of language and culture' are reactionary. And it is contrary with the thesis of 'independent state', the only true way of consideration of the nations' right of self-determination in our day."

In his Imrali Defence, A. Ocalan puts forward the invalidity of the principle of nations' right of self-determination and claims it is a dead-end: "The nations' right of self-determination, which came into fashion in 70s' and interpreted only as the formation of a separate state, in fact was a dead-end with that interpretation. In the practice of Kurdistan, it was putting into impasse the problem85However, when I saw in practice that even the understanding of semi-state, federation, autonomy and etc. are backward and sometimes cause dissolution in comparison with the richness of the style of democratic solution; it become very important for me to concentrate on the democratic system." (Imrali Defence P. 17)

These attitudes are doubtlessly putting into difficulty the revolutionary-popular solution of the Kurdish national question, and giving more time to the colonialist regime's impositions on dissolution.

MLCP considers the real settlement of the Kurdish question within the revolutionary solution which would bring "the full equality of nations and languages": The power of the Union of Workers'-Toilers' Soviet Republics.

This solution was tested and seen in the practice of socialist Soviet Union (SU). The voluntary union of equal, free and independent republics had glorified the people in common, made them brothers and sisters, but the privileges made them enemies of each other. In the light of all these, MLCP has determined the first clause of its programme of Anti-Imperialist Democratic Revolution as follows: "Fascist dictatorship of collaborationist-monopolist bourgeoisie and big landlords shall be overthrown through violent revolution and be replaced with a Union of Workers'-Toilers' Soviet Republics. But the right of separation remains." Moreover, in the Clause 12, it has been said: "The policy of assimilation and colonialist fascist terror and the dirty war carried on against Kurdish nation shall be brought to an end, and obstacles in the way of Kurdish nation preventing it from exercising its right to establish its own state and its freedoms to agitate, inseminate propaganda and organise with this purpose, shall be lifted and the right of Unification of the Kurdish people is recognised and will be defended." And the Clause 13 is almost in the characteristic of responding the current sup-supra discussions: "A full equality of rights between Kurds and Turks shall be ensured, restriction on all languages and cultures shall be abolished, a systematic struggle against Turkish nationalism shall be carried out, efforts shall be made to get Kurdish and Turkish peoples as well as Lazs, Gypsies, Abkhazs, Georgians, Circassians, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks and other nationalities live together in the Union of Workers'-Toilers' Soviet Republics on the basis of full equality of rights and completely of their own accord."

This is the communists' declaration of identity and solution plan!